During WWII many Navajo Indians served in the US Marine Corps in WWII, especially on the Pacific Front. One of the struggles that the American military had to overcome in WWII was that the Japanese were very effective at breaking their codes. It was difficult to design codes for the war effort because many Japanese had been educated in America or spoke English fluently, their cryptographers had success at breaking US military codes in the first years of the war. However, this changed in 1942 when Phillip Johnson, an American engineer and WWI veteran had the idea to use the Navajo language as a code. He was one of about 30 non-Najavo people who could speak the language having grown up both on and then near a reservation. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_talker#Cryptographic_properties)
In May 1942, the first 29 Navajo troops were recruited into the US Army and developed a code that would not be broken for the rest of the war. During this time they developed both a dictionary to use in sending codes and words that to correspond to military terminology. These code breakers were then sent to the Pacific where they proved pivitol in the battles for both Imo Jima and Guadalcanal where they sent information ranging from troop movements and orders to tactical information on the front lines. During the battle for Imo Jima for example over the first two days six code talkers sent 800 messages all of which were deciphered correctly and never intercepted by Japanese counter-intelligence. (http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq61-2.htm)
The code used by the Navajo was based off translating the Navajo word into English and then using the first letter of the world in English to begin to write the first word of the code, the second Navajo word would again be translated to English making the second letter of the code etc. The full 411 terms that made up the code can be found here.
A movie was made about these men called Wind Talkers in 2002. It was not very good, nor historically accurate, and Nicolas Cage gave a typically poor performance. Regardless, I think it is at least worth mentioning in this post.
Overview
History
During WWII many Navajo Indians served in the US Marine Corps in WWII, especially on the Pacific Front. One of the struggles that the American military had to overcome in WWII was that the Japanese were very effective at breaking their codes. It was difficult to design codes for the war effort because many Japanese had been educated in America or spoke English fluently, their cryptographers had success at breaking US military codes in the first years of the war. However, this changed in 1942 when Phillip Johnson, an American engineer and WWI veteran had the idea to use the Navajo language as a code. He was one of about 30 non-Najavo people who could speak the language having grown up both on and then near a reservation. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_talker#Cryptographic_properties)
In May 1942, the first 29 Navajo troops were recruited into the US Army and developed a code that would not be broken for the rest of the war. During this time they developed both a dictionary to use in sending codes and words that to correspond to military terminology. These code breakers were then sent to the Pacific where they proved pivitol in the battles for both Imo Jima and Guadalcanal where they sent information ranging from troop movements and orders to tactical information on the front lines. During the battle for Imo Jima for example over the first two days six code talkers sent 800 messages all of which were deciphered correctly and never intercepted by Japanese counter-intelligence. (http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq61-2.htm)
The code used by the Navajo was based off translating the Navajo word into English and then using the first letter of the world in English to begin to write the first word of the code, the second Navajo word would again be translated to English making the second letter of the code etc. The full 411 terms that made up the code can be found here.
A movie was made about these men called Wind Talkers in 2002. It was not very good, nor historically accurate, and Nicolas Cage gave a typically poor performance. Regardless, I think it is at least worth mentioning in this post.
Other sources:
http://www.navajocodetalkers.org/
http://oakparkmiddle.cpsb.org/k-quest/ww2/newwind/wind_talkers_home.htm
http://www.awesomestories.com/flicks/wind-talkers
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